My parents could never afford a big family trip to Disneyland. Instead we took week long camping trips to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Ontonagon to be geographically specific. My Dad's hunting cabin was there which doubled as our home away from home.
To this day my Dad visits annually for deer season in the fall and for longer trips with my Mom and their friends in the summer. I haven't been up there since college, which was about 5 years ago.
Even with the time passed, the cabin remains the same: secluded, serene, relaxing, and happy. Camp Whiskey Hollow (the cabin's official name) will forever remain that place of childhood adventure played out for my brother and I. What our memories lack in mouse ear hats they totally redeem themselves in jerry-rigged rain covers made of garbage bags with holes cut for our arms, because how else were we suppose to keep dry on our day long four-wheeler excursion in the rain? Where there may have been water log rides, we had actual water rides on canoes down the river. In our minds hotdogs and smores made gourmet meals and at the end of the night our sleeping bags were better than any hotel bed.
Through the years, I've always told my Mom I could never marry a man who doesn't also see the cabin through my adventurous childhood eyes. It used to worry me - finding a man who could have just as much fun in a suit and tie drinking a martini as they do dirty as hell driving a quad through a mud puddle in middle of nowhere. And then I met Jeff. And I stopped worrying.
Last weekend we introduced Jeff to Camp Whiskey Hollow. And he survived. No. Scratch that - he thrived. I took a deep sigh of relieve and fell in love with him even more. Not that I was worried or anything. But still. He fits there too. And I like that.
In terms of the adventure up there... not much has changed. I suppose the cuisine a bit - hotdogs have turned into 'low country boils' (shrimp, crab legs, lobster, potatoes, etc), but in the end the trip is all trail riding, kayaking, shooting guns, eating and drinking. My Dad even made me one of those slick rain jackets. I felt like a kid again.
Enjoy the photos and Epic - I'm still having a blast playing with that app. Check it out. It's FREE!
